do search engines see these differently?

[EliteRides]

www.domain.com
www.domain.com/index.php

Or, do they consider "index" the same as directory roots? Would it be beneficial to use htaccess to redirect all .com to .com/index.php or vice versa?

[Connie]

They do see them differently. I'ts better to redirect so all links will point to the home page. For more info http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-ad...onicalization/

[Vin DSL]

Confirmed!

I try to redirect to 'www.lenon.com' as much as possible...

http://www.lenon.com/ has a PR of '5'

http://www.lenon.com/index.php has a PR of '4'

http://lenon.com/ has a PR of '1'

http://lenon.com/index.php has a PR of '1'

[Spathiphyllum]

It's probably a little quicker to explicitly redirect right off the bat too rather than force the server to cycle through the array of alternate default "index" pages until it finds one to perform a redirect anyway. Inconsequential if you define the default index page in the web space hierarchy via .htaccess, but less so if it isn't defined.

[Connie]

A little information directly from Google Google Support

They do not address the domain.index question but the same thing applies.

On interior pages I use an absolute link back to the home page.